Peter Turchi: Twice-Told Tales (January 2001)

Peter Turchi examines the power that can accrue when different versions of the same event are included in a work of fiction. Looking at the narrative strategies available to a writer who wants write a “twice-told tale,” from the serial first-person accounts in Charles Baxter’s The Feast of Love to the use of omniscience in Katherine Anne Porter’s Noon Wine, Turchi argues that discrepancy between these different versions can work as a kind of narrative engine, providing energy and tension to the work as a whole.